William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook ▼ Primary Sources ▼ William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, the third son and fifth member of a family of ten children, whose father, William Cuthbert Aitken (1834–1913), was a Presbyterian minister, was born in Maple , Ontario , on 25th May 1879. His biographer, David George Boyce , has argued: "Until he was sixteen he attended the local school, where he was described as a bright but idle boy and (an epithet which he was to relish later in life) mischievous. He was also sensitive and nervous and harboured a fear of death that remained with him." In 1895 he failed his examination for Dalhousie University after refusing to sit the Latin and Greek papers. He moved to Chatham where he became local correspondent of The Montreal Star and an agent for the Great West Life insurance company. He then moved to St John, with the intention of being a lawyer.

However, he eventually worked as a full-time insurance agent, but this did not turn out to be a very successful venture. In 1900 Aitken moved to Halifax , a rapidly growing town that was developing an infrastructure of gas, telephones, and tramways. Aitken became friendly with John Fitzwilliam Stairs , a financial expert and highly successful businessman. With the help of Stairs he began dealing on the stock market. He also bought and sold companies as well as investing in Cuba and Puerto Rico . On 29th January 1906 he married Gladys Henderson Drury. The authors of Beaverbrook: A Life (1992) pointed out: "The bride was Gladys Drury, a girl universally liked and universally thought beautiful. She was very young, eighteen to his twenty-six, with long auburn hair and green eyes... The Drurys were a cut above the Aitkens.

The bride's distinguished father, Lieutenant-Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Charles Drury, had lately been appointed to a coverted post demanding social as well as military accomplishments; he was the first Canadian to command the Halifax garrison after the British Army relinquished its responsibilities." Their first child, Janet, was born on 9th July 1908. In 1909 the cement industry in Canada was in grave trouble. Overproduction and the establishment of new companies meant that the producers had to cut their prices to the point where they found it very difficult to be profitable. Aitken began buying these companies and merging them into one company he called Canada Cement. By September 1909 he had a near monopoly of the cement industry. Sir Sandford Fleming , Canada's leading industrialists, accused of Aitken of corrupt business activities, claiming that he had bought the merged companies for some $14,000,000, whereas he had told the shareholders that he had paid over $27,000,000, and issued himself with bonds and shares far in excess of the companies' true cost.

The case received a great deal of publicity and after paying back a large sum of money to shareholders, he decided to move to London . Aitken soon became friends with Andrew Bonar Law , a leading figure in the Conservative Party . As David George Boyce has pointed out: "The two men got on well, despite their very different individual temperaments: both had Scots-Canadian connections, both were sons of the manse, both were businessmen." Aitken gave Bonar Law business advice. A.J.P. Taylor claimed in his book, Beaverbrook (1972) that Bonar Law "probably benefited to the extent of some £10,000 a year." In November 1910 Law recommended him as a possible parliamentary candidate for Ashton under Lyne . Aitken agreed to fight the seat and with plenty of money to spend on publicity he was able to organise a good campaign. A local reporter claimed: "He set a new fashion in electioning... He planned the election exactly as though it were some great new business enterprise." Aitken won the seat by 196 votes. Aitken rarely spoke in the House of Commons .

However, he became a leading political figure because of his financial contributions to Conservative Party . Aitken bought Cherkley Court , a large house near Leatherhead , which became a centre of political gatherings. Aitken began to appear in political cartoons. David Low commented: "He was not a ready-made subject for caricature. Large head, boyish face, full cheeks, wide forehead, unruly hair, small nose with peculiar curve, wide grin belied by sharp light eye, slight small figure, short neck, high shoulders, neat extremities, hairy hands, undistinguished dark blue suit. The whole thing lay in the wide grin belied by the sharp eye." In 1911 Aitken and several senior figures in the party put up £40,000 to buy The Globe, the oldest of London's seven evening newspaper. Founded in 1803 and printed on pink paper. According to the authors of of Beaverbrook: A Life (1992): "The Globe, though unsuccessful, gave Aitken useful practice in dealing with advertisers and editors, like a young fighter testing his skills in the amateur ring before turning professional." Aitken also purchased shares in The Daily Express .

Aitken remained close to Andrew Bonar Law and supported him in his bid to oust Arthur Balfour as party leader. In October 1911 Aitken wrote to his friend, Rudyard Kipling : "Bonar Law has come to the conclusion that Balfour's position is very dangerous. Bonar is loyal to his leader, but admits that he may owe his allience elsewhere in the near future." Balfour resigned on 8th November. At a meeting of Conservative MPs on 13th November, it was discovered that it seemed to be a contest between Joseph Chamberlain and Walter Long . Bonar Law only had 40 firm supporters. Balfour's secretary wrote to his boss during the leadership contest: "Much intrigue has been at work.... Bonar Law's own methods are open to much criticism. In this struggle I am told that he has been run by Max Aitken, the little Canadian adventurer who sits for Ashton-under-Lyne. Aitken practically owns the Daily Express and the Daily Express has run Bonar Law for the last two days for all it is worth. The real Bonar Law appears to be a man of boundless ambition untempered by any particular nice feelings.

It is a revelation." With the help of Aitken, Bonar Law became the new leader. It has been argued that Bonar Law's accession to the leadership probably saved the unity of the Conservative Party. David Low has argued: "He (Aitken) dislocated the pattern, ruptured the continuity, pushed traditions and institutions around. His loyalty was placed where and when, in his arbitrary judgment, at any given time, it was deserved. He certainly did not conform to anything. He was nobody but himself. Two simple ideas underlaid the success story in Canadian business: mergers and the exploitation of new values there from. His subsequent story in British politics had run on the same lines. His main political operations had been all mergers, achieved or attempted, of people, parties and/or policies." H. G. Wells suggested: "If ever Max ever gets to Heaven, he won't last long. He will be chucked out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell after having secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places, of course." The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 gave Aitken the opportunity to show his organisational skills.

On 3rd October, 1914, 30,000 Canadian troops sailed for England. They camped on Salisbury Plain while they received training before being sent to the Western Front . Aitken became honorary lieutenant-colonel and was appointed to help the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force . He was instrumental in creating the Canadian War Records Office in London and arranged for stories about Canadian forces appearing in newspapers. In January 1916 Aitken published the first volume of Canada in Flanders . Valentine Browne , 6th Earl of Kenmare, met Aitken during this period: "He was not very tall but sturdy enough. His head was large and round - eyes far apart. He was dressed in the uniform of a Canadian colonel, wearing no strap on his belt and boots laced up the centre. Not a military figure from a Guardsman's point of view but singularly engaging from a young man's angle. The approach to youth is delicate. Some have a sensitive touch and they alone always know how to get response out of mankind... Max Aitken had this touch." In 1916 Aitken purchased a controlling interest in The Daily Express .

However, he kept this a secret as he disapproved of the way the war was being pursued and used his newspaper to undermine the power of Herbert Asquith . He was also involved in the plot to remove Asquith from power. He later recalled that it was the most important thing that he had done in politics: "The destruction of the Asquith Government which was brought about by an honest intrigue. If the Asquith government had gone on, the country would have gone down." The consequences of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916 put further pressure on Asquith. Colin Matthew has commented: "The huge casualties of the Somme implied a further drain on manpower and further problems for an economy now struggling to meet the demands made of it... Shipping losses from the U-boats had begun to be significant...

Early in November 1916 he called for all departments to write memoranda on how they saw the pattern of 1917, the prologue to a general reconsideration of the allies' position." At a meeting in Paris on 4th November, 1916, David Lloyd George came to the conclusion that the present structure of command and direction of policy could not win the war and might well lose it. Lloyd George agreed with Maurice Hankey , secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet, that he should talk to Andrew Bonar Law , the leader of the Conservative Party , about the situation. Bonar Law remained loyal to Asquith and so Lloyd George contacted Aitken instead and told him about his suggested reforms. On 18th November, Aitken lunched with Bonar Law and put Lloyd George's case for reform. He also put forward the arguments for Lloyd George becoming the leader of the coalition. He later recalled in his book, Politicians and the War (1928): "Once he had taken up war as his metier he seemed to breathe its true spirit; all other thoughts and schemes were abandoned, and he lived for, thought of and talked of nothing but the war.

Ruthless to inefficiency and muddle-headedness in his conduct, sometimes devious, if you like, in the means employed when indirect methods would serve him in his aim, he yet exhibited in his country's death-grapple a kind of splendid sincerity." Together, Aitken, Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Edward Carson , drafted a statement addressed to Asquith, proposing a war council triumvirate and the Prime Minister as overlord. On 25th November, Bonar Law took the proposal to Asquith, who agreed to think it over. The next day he rejected it. Further negotiations took place and on 2nd December Asquith agreed to the setting up of "a small War Committee to handle the day to day conduct of the war, with full powers", independent of the cabinet. This information was leaked to the press by Carson. On 4th December The Times used these details of the War Committee to make a strong attack on Asquith. The following day he resigned from office. On 7th December George V asked Lloyd George to form a second coalition government.

Aitken expected David Lloyd George , the new prime minister, to appoint him as President of the Board of Trade, but this did not happen. Instead he was granted a peerage and as Lord Beaverbrook he became a leading political figure in Britain. However, Beaverbrook remained critical of the government and in 1917 he helped finance The Imperialist, a newspaper run by the right-wing MP, Noel Pemberton Billing . His biographer, Geoffrey Russell Searle , has pointed out that "Billing campaigned for a unified air service, helped force the government to establish an air inquiry, and advocated reprisal raids against German cities. He also became adept at exploiting a variety of popular discontents." The journal also claimed the existence of a secret society called the Unseen Hand . As Ernest Sackville Turner , the author of Dear Old Blighty (1980) has pointed out: "One of the great delusions of the war was that there existed an Unseen (or Hidden, or Invisible) Hand, a pro-German influence which perennially strove to paralyse the nation's will and to set its most heroic efforts at naught...

As defeat seemed to loom, as French military morale broke and Russia made her separate peace, more and more were ready to believe that the Unseen Hand stood for a confederacy of evil men, taking their orders from Berlin, dedicated to the downfall of Britain by subversion of the military, the Cabinet, the Civil Service and the City; and working not only through spiritualists, whores and homosexuals." Beaverbrook decided against supporting The Imperialist after he was told that he was to become the first Minister of Information, responsible for Allied propaganda in Allied and neutral countries. Lord Northcliffe became Director of Propaganda, with the job of controlling propaganda in enemy countries. On 9th February, 1918, Noel Pemberton Billing launched a savage attack on Lord Beaverbrook in The Imperialist. "His name for the moment is Beaverbrook; and was Max Aitken, which some people believe is derived from an original name of Isaacs. If this is true, he belongs to the same tribe as our Lord Chief Justice Ambassador, and the ruling and representing of Britain has become a close tribal affair ...

It seems, if they have accepted Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Propaganda, they have walked into the first trap baited by a banking organisation most to be feared by those who wish this country well." After the war Beaverbrook concentrated on his newspaper business. He told the readers of the Daily Express that his newspaper was "the prophet of equal opportunity and the unrelenting opponent of that system of preferred chances which gives one man an unfair opportunity over a more competent rival." In 1919 the newspaper's circulation was under 400,000; but by 1930 it was 1,693,000 and in 1937 it stood at 2,329,000, the largest circulation of any newspaper in the British Isles. Beaverbrook, who developed ideas pioneered by Alfred Harmsworth and the Daily Mail , turned the Daily Express into the most widely read newspaper in the world. Beaverbrook also founded the Sunday Express (1921) and in 1929 purchased the Evening Standard .

Beaverbrook's biographer, David George Boyce , has tried to explain the success of his newspaper: "This was because of its popular, aggressive tone, but also its optimism, enthusiasm, and claim to speak for those who were, like Beaverbrook himself, determined to stand up for themselves and take control of their own lives. There were also lively features, and all this in the style of the new journalism. Beaverbrook, like his great predecessor Northcliffe, was careful to keep up with the new technology and to experiment with layout. Unlike Northcliffe he did not use stunts to promote sales: his success was based on his belief in the importance of the words on the page, and to this end he hired first-rate staff - financial writers like Francis Williams and the great cartoonist David Low (whom Beaverbrook brought to the Evening Standard in 1927)." Beaverbrook was a strong supporter of appeasement in the late 1930s and his newspaper praised Neville Chamberlain and the Munich Agreement , with the Daily Express claiming on 22nd September 1938 that Britain had made no pledge to protect the frontiers of Czechoslovakia .

In March 1939 he denied that Chamberlain had made any absolute guarantee to Poland , and when war broke out in September, Beaverbrook's political judgement was severely damaged. After a meeting with Winston Churchill on 10th May, 1940, Beaverbrook threw his energy behind the war effort. Churchill appointed Beaverbrook minister of aircraft production, knowing how good Beaverbrook was at inspiring and driving staff. Beaverbrook took over responsibility for repairs to damaged aircraft, as well as production of new planes. On 2nd August he became a member of the war cabinet. Other posts held by Beaverbrook during the Second World War included Minister of Supply (1941-2), Minister of War Production (1942), and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). He eventually clashed with Ernest Bevin . The historian, A.J.P. Taylor , has argued: "Beaverbrook had a fatal weakness. He had no political following. He commanded no wide popularity in parliament or in the country. He was in his own words, a court favourite, who owed his position to Churchill's friendship. The protecting hand was now withdrawn.

Beaverbrook's defeat was cloaked by the excuse of physical illness. No doubt more lay behind. Churchill could not go into battle against Bevin. Besides he did not want to. Beaverbrook was as enthusiastic for Soviet Russia and the Second Front as any factory worker. Churchill resisted these enthusiasms. This brought Beaverbrook down. He left the government." In 1947 Beaverbrook told the Royal Commission on the Press he ran his papers for propaganda purposes, and that he was unwilling to allow his editors to oppose policies that were "dear to his heart". He argued: "No paper is any good at all for propaganda unless it has a thoroughly good financial position. So we worked very hard to build up a commercial position on that account". The commission later reported that Beaverbrook picked staff who shared his views and policies. This included his views on the European Common Market (EEC) which he complained was "an American device to put us alongside Germany. As our power was broken and lost by two German wars, it is very hard on us now to be asked to align ourselves with those villains".

His biographer, David George Boyce , points out: "He argued that free enterprise was the way forward, but he was not a consistently right-wing thinker: the cold war was, he thought, unnecessary. He still clung to the ideas of imperial unity, freedom from foreign entanglements, and a distant relationship with the United States of America, all of which though not necessarily mistaken - were out of touch with the times. He remained the empire crusader, opposing British acceptance of an American loan in 1947, and, above all, against the British application to join the European Common Market (EEC)." William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, died of cancer at Cherkley Court on 9th June, 1964. First World War.com - Who's Who - Lord Beaverbrook What's New Who's Who - Lord Beaverbrook Born in Ontario, Sir William Maxwell Aitken (1879-1964), later ennobled as Lord Beaverbrook, was initially a successful Canadian financier before retiring from business in 1910 to embark upon a political career.

Sponsored Links In 1910 he took up a seat in the House of Commons, where he represented Ashton-under-Lyne for the Conservative party. With good political connections, and a close friend of future Prime Minister David Lloyd George , Aitken served on the Western Front from early in 1915 as a journalist attached to Canadian forces (as 'Canadian Eye Witness'). In May 1915 Aitken was appointed as the Canadian force's official records officer and, from 1916, the Canadian government's official representative in France. In 1916 Aitken published a three-volume account of the war from the Canadian viewpoint, Canada in Flanders, which quickly established itself as a bestseller. Aitken was ennobled as Baron Beaverbrook by Lloyd George (now Prime Minister, succeeding Asquith ) in 1917 and appointed to the London government on 10 February 1918, as Minister of Information - dealing with government propaganda, where he worked alongside notables including Charles Masterson and John Buchan (the latter author of the bestselling war stories The 39 Steps , Greenmantle and Mr Standfast ).

Beaverbrook's elevation to government was at least in part due to his role in engineering Asquith's ousting as premier with Lloyd George as his replacement in December 1916. An energetic man, Beaverbrook immediately set about a coordinated British propaganda programme, responsible for the dissemination of war information at home, among Allies and in neutral countries. His close colleague, Lord Northcliffe , meanwhile was responsible for directing propaganda towards the populations of enemy nations. Clever in his use of propaganda, Beaverbrook commissioned a series of poster campaigns designed by famed artists of the period, and encouraged successful authors to write pamphlets and newspaper articles; the latter group included such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling , H G Wells and Sir Henry Newbolt , as well as Buchan). Beaverbrook also pioneered the design and use of photographic posters for recruitment purposes at home, and introduced cinema newsreels. A dispute over jurisdiction with the Foreign Office prompted Beaverbrook's resignation in October 1918 (Beaverbrook was keen to arrange for the dropping of millions of leaflets designed by his department into enemy territories).

A powerful owner of numerous popular newspapers including the Daily Express and the London Evening Standard, Beaverbrook spent the period between the First and Second World Wars in advocating the benefits of British imperial unity. With the renewed outbreak of war in 1939 and Winston Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister in 1940, Beaverbrook returned to government, serving as Minister for Aircraft Production (1940-41), Minister of Supply (1941-42), Minister of War Production (1942) and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). Beaverbrook's numerous volumes of memoirs sold well and included Politicians the Press (1925), Politicians and the War (1928) and Men and Power (1956). He died in 1964. Sponsored Links Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Michael Duffy "Wipers" was the British nickname for the Belgian town Ypres. - Did you know?

Beaverbrook Foundation Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell ‘Max’ Aitken, First Baron Beaverbrook Bt, PC William Maxwell Aitken, the first Lord Beaverbrook, effortlessly traversed the worlds of politics, finance and newspapers, revolutionising them – with not so much as a backward glance – as he did so. Imbued with a small fortune, great restlessness and energy, and an unswerving belief in the British Empire, he moved, as a young man, from his native Canada to London. There, within a few years, he had propelled himself into Parliament and had acquired the majority shareholding in the Daily Express and the Evening Standard. He quickly gained the reputation of a fearless political fixer, (a reputation, it must be admitted, that was at times unfounded), and he was one of only three men to serve in the Cabinet in both Wars. Aitken revelled in his position as an outsider: ostentatiously keeping his Canadian drawl, largely disdaining overtures of two British monarchs, and enjoying his image as a master of intrigue and mischief maker par excellence.

For nearly half a century, when cabinets fell and finance houses collapsed, the whisper across England would always be the same: Where is Max Beaverbrook? Key dates: Sir John William Maxwell Aitken Peter Rudyard Aitken The Early Years Aitken was born on 25th May 1879, the fifth child of William Aitken, a dignified and devout Presbyterian preacher of Scottish extraction. He spent his early childhood in the frontier town of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada. Later in life he would recall the hardship of his early years. But this was an undoubted exaggeration: though by no means rich, the Aitken family were able to live comfortably in their Canadian provincial backwater. Young Max attended high school where he showed early signs of an ability to make trouble, and tried and failed to gain entry into Dalhousie University. Moving away from his family, he studied to become a lawyer, and helped another aspiring barrister Richard Bedford Bennett, (who later became Prime Minister of Canada), to gain election to the Legislative Assembly of the North West Territories. He moved again to Halifax, where charm and some luck brought him to the attention of the dominant business family, who employed him to sell bonds on commission.

In 1904 John F Stairs opened the newly formed Royal Securities Corporation; Aitken became a minority shareholder and the company’s general manager. Quickly gaining confidence he engineered a number of increasingly large business deals and began setting up companies, with interests as far wide as the Caribbean and England. By 1906, by his own reckoning, he was worth $700,000. He continued to manipulate the markets and create mergers – of which the largest and perhaps most lucrative was the Canadian cement merger – drawing censure on more than one occasion from the Canadian authorities. It is said that there were irregularities in the stock transfer resulting from the conglomeration of the cement plants. Aitken sold his shares, making a large amount of money; and then left for England. Some say that had he stayed in Canada he would have been charged with securities fraud. Introduction To Politics It was to London that Aitken arrived in the spring of 1910, ostensibly to raise capital for the acquisition of a steel company. But it was to politics that he turned. He had met Bonar Law through business; their friendship grew quickly through a mutual belief in tariff reform.

To beat such a drum, Aitken needed a parliamentary seat and with the help of Bonar Law and the lesser known politician Edward Goulding, he found candidacy as a Conservative, and then election, in Ashton-under-Lyme, in Manchester. It was a remarkably swift entry to the Commons, and one that did not go unnoticed. 'Who is Mr Aitken?,' enquired the Daily Mail. It was a question that was to be repeated when Aitken, months later, accepted a knighthood in the 1911 Coronation honours. The party coffers had certainly grown since his arrival, if, so far, his reputation had not. His appearances in the Commons were brief and uninspiring, but investigations into his businesses in Canada precluded his return there for the moment. It was not for nothing that Lady Diana Cooper would later address her letters to 'Dear Lord Crooks'. Journalism Aitken had always harboured an attraction to the world of journalism since he had delivered newspapers as a small boy. He had acquired a magazine in Canada, the ‘Canadian Century’, which did little more than limp along; the absence of the proprietor, it can be assumed, was keenly felt.

From 1911 he made overtures to buy the Daily Express in London, slowly increasing his stake in the newspaper from that year onwards. By 1916, through a slow process of incrementalism, he owned the paper outright, though he did little to trumpet the fact, and few for the moment knew that he owned the largest shareholding. Asquith’s Demise Victory for Aitken in the contest for control of the paper drew a sad contrast to the struggles of his adopted country on the battlefields of France. Asquith's cabinet by 1916 was riven by the fissures in the wider Liberal party; every day that the war continued his reputation as an ineffective leader grew larger. Opportunities were open. Here, behind the scenes, Aitken manoeuvred relentlessly, first promoting his old friend Bonar Law and then conspiring to bring Lloyd George and Bonar Law together into an anti-Asquith cabal. There was much to-ing and fro-ing from his rooms at the Hyde Park Hotel. On 5th December, Asquith resigned; on the 7th, Lloyd George became Prime Minister with Bonar Law at his side.

Peerage On 9th December, 1917 Aitken was offered a peerage. If he had not exactly placed Asquith's head on the block, he had certainly been instrumental in bringing him to trial. Sir Max accepted the peerage, ignoring the King's objections. The Morning Post proposed that he should call himself Lord Bunty, after a popular play called ‘Bunty Pulls the Strings’, a satirical if not altogether unfair, reflection on recent events. Instead, he chose the title Beaverbrook, not – as was romantically put about – because it had been a stream near New Brunswick where he had fished as a boy; but, because, more prosaically, he had found it on a map. The 1920s and 1930s established Beaverbrook's reputation as a brilliant exponent of crusader politics. He had, of course, won appointment in the last months of the war as the first ever Minister of Information responsible for Allied propaganda in Allied and neutral countries; and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but a series of rows with Lloyd George led to his resignation.

Media tycoon It was therefore the pages of the Daily Express and the running of that newspaper, which felt the full force of his boundless energy. After the fall of Lloyd George, he used it to support Bonar Law in his successful attempt to become Prime Minister: a pyrrhic victory as within months Bonar Law was dead. More satisfying were the huge rises in circulation both in the Daily Express and Sunday Express, which had been set up in December 1918, (and to a lesser extent in the Evening Standard which he acquired in 1923.) In 1919, the Daily Express sold 400,000 copies a day; by 1938 some 2,329,000 and, much later, by 1960, the astonishing figure of 4,300,000, making it the largest ever selling British newspaper. It will be for his role as a pioneer of newspapers and for his ability to form public opinion that Beaverbrook will be ultimately remembered.

In the 1930s, while personally attempting to dissuade King Edward VIII from continuing his potentially ruinous affair with American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, Beaverbrook’s papers published every titbit of the affair, especially allegations about pro-Nazi sympathies. He did, of course, try to maintain the hardly plausible outward appearance of a benign proprietor. But anyone who visited Cherkley Court, his country house near Leatherhead in Surrey, could not be deceived. There was ticker tape with the latest news continually arriving, there were banks of telephones ringing, sound scribing machines in operation. Amongst it all sat Beaverbrook firing off memorandums, leaking gossip, and barking orders down the telephone to terrified editors. The Daily Express became the voice of intellectual populism with Beaverbrook's appointment of writers such as Michael Foot, John Junor, Woodrow Wyatt, and the cartoonist David Low. It was also a useful stick with which he could beat friends and foes alike.

Appeasement and War Thus the Express leant wholehearted support to his Empire Crusade of 1929-31 – even introducing the helmeted crusader on its masthead which the paper keeps to this day – which was the extension of his early tariff reform sympathies to 'whole hog' protectionism; it gave cover to his attacks on Baldwin; and, most notoriously of all, it became a sounding board for his opinions on the abdication crisis, appeasement, and relations with Russia. The crusades of appeasement and the campaign for closer relations with Russia almost left the Daily Express seriously derailed, (not in the battle for circulation, indeed in these years circulation climbed further), but as a continuing beacon of serious opinion. The issues illustrated both the power of subjugating the press to the mind-set of a single person, and the chronic myopia that such a practice could create. Beaverbrook had been in tentative contact with Ribbentrop since 1937, and had – admittedly in the name of European stability – been preaching a conciliatory attitude towards Germany through his newspapers.

An Evening Standard leader opined in September 1937: 'The chief error in British policy towards Germany is a matter not so much of actions as of attitudes. For years past British politicians have spoken harshly of Nazi Germany purely because it is Nazi … is it not possible to sweep that atmosphere away?'. On learning of Ribbentrop's appointment as Foreign Minister in March 1938, Beaverbrook wrote to congratulate him: 'It is with real pleasure that I hear today of your appointment … I know full well that you will take full advantage of your great authority and immense power … you will have the loyal support of my newspapers.' In September 1938, the Daily Express famously declared that Britain would 'not be involved in a European war this year, or next year either'. Beaverbrook kept on declaring it to the bitter end, almost until Hitler's Panzer divisions arrived at the gates of Cherkley. (It is ironic indeed that the searing polemic, ‘Guilty Men’, fired off in 1940 against the appeasers of the 1930s, was written by a number of Beaverbrook journalists: Michael Foot, Peter Howard, and Frank Owen.

It did not mention Beaverbrook. It should have done.) A similar lack of foresight was evident in his dealings with Russia: a meeting with Stalin in September 1941, led to a determined campaign to supply Russia with armaments and to open up a second front as soon as was possible, perfectly arguable in their own right. Not so, was his sympathetic stance towards Stalin, a stance that continued in the post war years against all evidence to the contrary. Speaking in Washington in April 1942 he argued that 'Communism under Stalin has provided us with examples of patriotism equal to the finest annals of history? Communism under Stalin has won the applause and admiration of all western nations? Political purges? Of course. But it is now clear that the men who were shot down would have betrayed Russia to her German enemy.' Cabinet Minister Beaverbrook's energies found more productive results in his tenure as Minister of Aircraft Production, and later Minister of Supplies, with a place in the War Cabinet, from mid-1940 onwards. It was a post offered by Churchill, against the advice of George VI.

For Churchill had always been impressed by Beaverbrook's 'vital and vibrant energy' even though they had, on several occasions over the last thirty years, been at each other's throats. The new Prime Minister had long regarded Beaverbrook as a confidant, and now, a very necessary addition to the war effort. The minister's irascible zeal soon proved its worth. Fighter and bomber production were immeasurably increased. 'This was his hour,' Churchill later declared. 'His personal force and genius, combined with so much persuasion and contrivance, swept aside many obstacles. Everything in the supply line was drawn forward to the battle…' That said, there were those in his Ministry who did not enjoy being treated like his newspaper editors. And it is a reflection on his character that he could not understand why. Again and again he complained of the difficulties that he faced, firing off a letter of resignation as he did so. Finally, one was accepted. In addition to his ministerial role, Beaverbrook accompanied Churchill to several wartime meetings with President Roosevelt; and later in 1941 he headed the British delegation to Moscow with American counterpart Averell Harriman.

But by September 1943 he was back: as Lord Privy Seal. For all their differences, Churchill could not live without the counsel of the wily Max. The Post War Years The post war years, with their combination of rigorous socialism and imperial decline, were an unpleasant reality for the aging Beaverbrook. To the outside world his legend continued: his editors still waited nervously for the call and the unmistakable bark: 'What's news?' But there seemed more of a sense of nostalgia about his conversation and his work, and certainly an embittered isolation from political affairs. He found solace in travel – a tough yearly schedule that took him from Cherkley, to La Capponcina in the south of France, to the Bahamas, to New York, to Canada and back – and, of course, in writing. He turned out well written, if somewhat indulgent, accounts of his heroes and his own contribution to the First World War. After the War, Beaverbrook served as Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick and became the university’s greatest benefactor, fulfilling the same role for the city of Fredericton and the Province as a whole.

He provided additions to the University, scholarship funds, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Beaverbrook Skating Rink, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, the Playhouse, and many other projects. He once estimated that he had given some $16 million to various causes in New Brunswick alone. He set up and chaired Foundations both in the UK and Canada to further his philanthropic aims. Lord Rosbery said of him: ‘He used his wealth unostentatiously, sometimes not even letting his right hand know what his left hand did. He helped many in distress. I have known even his enemies, of whom he had many, to be helped by him anonymously when he heard that they were in an impoverished condition.’ In England, Beaverbrook lived at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, Surrey. He remained a widower until 1963 when he married Marcia Anastasia Christofrides, the widow of his friend Sir James Dunn. By the early 1960s, however, it was clear that the curtain was falling. He was feted one last time at a dinner at the Dorchester for his eighty-fifth birthday in late May 1964. He died two weeks later on 9th June.

He could show outwardly, at least, that there had been no decline. Publications Beaverbrook | World War II Database World War II Database Contributor: Alan Chanter ww2dbaseWilliam Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook was born in Maple, Ontario, Canada in 1879. He became a stockbroker where he a made a fortune from the Canadian cement mills. In 1909 Aitken moved to Britain and the followed year was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne. In 1912, he sold a large sum of Canadian stocks, and some claimed the trades might have irregularities; he was never accused of securities fraud in Canada. In 1918 Aitken was granted the title of Lord Beaverbrook on his appointment by David Lloyd George to the post of Minister of Information. ww2dbaseIn 1919 Beaverbrook obtained a majority interest in the Daily Express newspaper, and in 1921 founded its companion newspaper, The Sunday Express. In 1929 Lord Beaverbrook acquired the London Evening Standard making him one of the most influential press Barons in Britain.

In the same year he began his campaign for "Empire Free Trade". ww2dbaseIn May 1940 Winston Churchill recruited Beaverbrook into his Cabinet as the Minister for Aircraft Production (1940-41). The taciturn Lord Beaverbrook ran his Ministry in the same way that he had ran his newspaper empire, and in so doing gathered a large number of political enemies, particularly in the Air Ministry, whose responsibility for deciding which Aircraft the Royal Air Force were to have he immediately usurped. Nevertheless through his efforts the RAF were able to receive a constant supply of new fighters when they were needed the most-During the Battle of Britain. "His personal force and genius made this Aitken's finest hour", said Churchill after observing Aitken's successes at the Air Ministry. ww2dbaseIn 1941 Churchill appointed Beaverbrook as Minister of Supply, and a year later to the newly created post of Minister of War Production. At a dinner in New York in 1942 he was instrumental in encouraging the Americans to supply aid to the Soviet Union.

Beaverbrook also opposed, unsuccessfully, to the policy of strategic bombing of German cities, feeling that bombers would be better employed in supporting the ground troops. ww2dbaseFrom 1943 until 1945 he served as Lord Privy Seal, a post that held no Ministerial responsibilities but was traditionally one of the Great Offices of State in the United Kingdom. In reality, he was a Minister without Portfolio. ww2dbaseAfter the War Beaverbrook's political career came to an end. Once the protective hand of Churchill's friendship had evaporated, Beaverbrook was left with no wide popularity in Parliament and few friends amongst the new regime of eager young socialists and trade unionists of the Attlee premiership. He left Parliament under the excuse of ill-health (a common reason given for the removal of Ministers who were no longer politically desirable). ww2dbaseWilliam Maxwell Aitken, 1st Lord Beaverbrook, died in Surrey, England, Britain in 1964.

ww2dbaseSources: Bomber Command (Max Hastings, Pan book 1979), Fighter (Len Deighton, Triat/Pamther, 1979), Wartime Britain 1939-1945 (Juliet Gardiner, Headline books 2004), The Wordsworth Dictionary of British History (Wordsworth Editions, 1994). Beaverbrook Timeline

Question: Lord Beaverbrook was Minister for Aircraft Production in world war 11 what was he the minister of in world war 1
Answer: Information